Sob Story & Introduction From A Terrified Newbie

Wow. What can I say? It's my 3d post and I just signed up today... I guess I'm gonna keep bothering you guys until I get banned ;D

So. Here's my life story in case any of you can relate/ advise. Like many of you I've been on every diet possible. When I found Sisson's Primal Blueprint I thought I found the holy grail. At the time (age 21) I was a little overweight and wanted to lose weight. My hormones were out of balance since 19, when my cycle stopped being regular (I never really cared), I had acne since 12 and was fairly skinny until 18 when I started putting on weight. I thought I had PCOS but never got it diagnosed.

Anyway, I lost about 15lbs in 6 months (whoopty doo) on Primal but it was too agonizingly slow for me so I decided to tinker with IFing, weight lifting and VLC. It worked. I got down to a weight I liked (thought it was hard to maintain if I ate more than 20g carbs). I'd weight lift on an empty stomach and fast for 24hrs 2-3 days a week. My meals were raw salads with canned tuna or steak with sauerkraut.

Then I had a weird kidney stone incident (I think) and ended up in the incapable hands of the emergency staff. I still don't know what it was other than the fact it was the most horrible pain I've ever experienced and I was curled up in pain or puking the sauerkraut I had the day before (still feel queasy at the sight of the stuff).

Since my perfect Primal lifestyle didn't shield me from all diseases, as promised, I freaked out a little and started binging. Now I've gained all the weight and then some... I haven't gotten my period in more than a year now. I can't lose weight no matter what I do, I have trouble sleeping, I'm depressed most of the time, pretty moody (but can you blame me?) and I'm pushing my BMI to the obese spectrum.

Oy vey, I'm a mess......! Looking at my macronutrients I barely get 60g of protein a day, never get any calcium, have hard time letting go of my sugar phobia (or I binge) and I'm still scared that consuming fruits and potatoes will make me gain weight... I don't know much, only that everything I've been doing so far is wrong. I'm pretty much afraid that no matter what I do I'll never lose weight or be happy...

Anyway, that's my sob story. I just got Progest-E in the mail and I have no idea what to do with it. I'm also trying to read Dr. Peat's articles and they go over my head for the most part. All I have are bits and pieces of things I've heard from other Peat proponents to go on... So, expect A LOT of questions!

Thanks for reading I guess... Would be nice to hear back from you guys/ gals!

Welcome Peat's_Girl! I love the name. Many forum members (myself included) have experienced a paleo/primal phase and are now completely recovered. I think you will find yourself in good company here.

Welcome to the forum

I think if you post a cronometer.com chart of your current food and nutrients
intake then people can give you more constructive suggestions.
You can also add all the supplements you are taking now.
There is a general dietary guidelines on the first page of the forum.

I also did a few weeks of very low carb diet and lost about 10 lbs and luckily
could not continue it further due to serious sleep problem . Never had sleep
problem before that. Later i have read a paper that claimed that one can
lose 3-10 lbs on a low carb diet just by burning all the glycogen storage, it is
all water weight. Glycogen uses several water molecules in stored form.
Similarly if someone switch from low carb to high carb they will add that
3-10 lbs by repleting glycogen storage and it is all water weight.

Sugar ( Fructose, Sucrose ) increases metabolism 25 to 50 percent.
This helps to burn extra calories. Based on this RP thinks starch is
fattening and sugar is not. Low carbohydrate lowers conversion of thyroid
hormone and by increasing carb one is increasing active thyroid hormone
and metabolism. Since, people's thyroid function is lowered in low carb form
it takes some time to regain that function and one should not gain weight if they eat
according to their metabolism.

I lost 14 lbs when i switched from strach+sugar diet to only sugar diet .
Then i regained 7 lbs after i added starch for my lunch. I still eat one starchy
meal for lunch and have been able to lose total of 23 lbs over last 1.5 year.
Hypothyroid people have problem burning sugar and fructose in sugar and fruits
increases sugar metabolism as fructose does not need insulin to be burned
and fructose acts a lot like insulin.

Quality protein is another major factor in peating. It is important to have
low tryptophan protein source with good calcium to phosphorus balance.
Calcium powefully increases metabolism. RP recommends 1200 to 2000 mg
of calcium daily with phosphorus intake equal to or lower than calcium.

I'll add a couple of points to Mittir's above.

1. If you can improve your physical health, you can improve your mental energy, including your capacity to enjoy life, whatever happens with your weight. I think restrictive dieting/low carb through late teens - early twenties when the body should be growing and maturing is tough on it. Be kind to yourself.

2. I think it is worth making some dietary changes first, so you can start to see what effects that has, and also so that you have a nutritional basis to support any supplementary hormones if/when you start to add them. It's OK to make changes gradually, so your body can get used to it. It wouldn't surprise me if you would find the progest-e helpful - it should help counteract the BC effects.

3. Several smaller meals through the day including protein, carbs and a little fat may work better to begin with than three meals a day (or longer fasts). Most protein during the day, less in evening. Breakfast when you wake up, and supper before bed.

4. If you have been eating a lot of polyunsaturated fats, it is worth reducing them as soon and as far you practically can. Prefer more saturated fats - coconut oil, butter/ghee, beef fat, depending on what agrees with you. Depending on whether you are getting enough calories, you may want to reduce fat as you increase sugar.

5. For some people (but not everyone), the daily raw carrot salad makes a quick improvement in digestion and hormones.

Blossom said:

Welcome Peat's_Girl! I love the name. Many forum members (myself included) have experienced a paleo/primal phase and are now completely recovered. I think you will find yourself in good company here.

Click to expand...

Thanks Blossom! Yeah, it's gonna be hard letting go of previous dogmas.

Peat's_Girl said:

Blossom said:

Welcome Peat's_Girl! I love the name. Many forum members (myself included) have experienced a paleo/primal phase and are now completely recovered. I think you will find yourself in good company here.

Click to expand...

Thanks Blossom! Yeah, it's gonna be hard letting go of previous dogmas.

Click to expand...

You can do it! I remember how hard it seemed at first but Peat's work made so much sense to me that I stuck with it and in no time at all I started noticing improvements. Hang in there.

Mittir said:

Welcome to the forum

I think if you post a cronometer.com chart of your current food and nutrients
intake then people can give you more constructive suggestions.

Click to expand...

How do you post a chronometer chart?
My food is pretty inconsistent. I still need to get a bunch of stuff to supplement my protein, calcium and gelatin intake.
I don't eat any fruit and do more potatoes. Does Peat ever talk about seasonality and fruit intake? What if you can't get fruit all year round?

I already read the guidelines and I have that nifty chart on my desktop to refer to, as well as extensive notes.

Wow, lucky you only stayed for a few weeks. I've been VLC, ZC and Primal for around 4 years...
I did lose a great deal of weight (30lbs) in about a year. Now I have 50lbs to lose... Augh.

Right now I'm really tempted to get a quick fix with PSMF and THEN do Peat, but I'm also afraid of ******* my body up even more. I'm just impatient.

Do you restrict your calories to lose weight or are macronutrients more important?
What should be the carb/ fat/ protein ratio?

By sugar do you mean mainly fruit? What's your typical meal look like?

Mittir said:

It is important to have low tryptophan protein source with good calcium to phosphorus balance.

Click to expand...

What's that and how do you do that? ;D;D;D

Mittir said:

Calcium powerfully increases metabolism. RP recommends 1200 to 2000 mg
of calcium daily with phosphorus intake equal to or lower than calcium.

Click to expand...

See, I can't seem to do that no matter what... What kind of foods to you have to eat to get that? Kale? Spinach? Maybe I'm drinking too much coffee. I'm buying calcium citrate 'cause just drinking milk doesn't get me 1,200mg

tara said:

I'll add a couple of points to Mittir's above.

If you have been eating a lot of polyunsaturated fats, it is worth reducing them as soon and as far you practically can. Prefer more saturated fats - coconut oil, butter/ghee, beef fat, depending on what agrees with you. Depending on whether you are getting enough calories, you may want to reduce fat as you increase sugar.

Click to expand...

No problem here with saturated fats ;D Butter and CO are my cooking darlings! That said, I'm thinking of not eating pork and poultry anymore (in fact, sometimes, eating chicken causes indigestion for me) but money tight and those are the cheapest proteins.

I can't tolerate dairy well, though I love it, but I'm trying to add more and more each day. The hardest thing for me, looking at Chronometer is to let go of my Primal ways... Fat is the highest, then carbs and protein is pathetic... I don't know how to reduce fat while using butter and coconut oil and drinking full fat dairy... Oh, also can't make myself eat fruit. I lost the taste for it over the years

Blossom said:

Peat's_Girl said:

Blossom said:

Welcome Peat's_Girl! I love the name. Many forum members (myself included) have experienced a paleo/primal phase and are now completely recovered. I think you will find yourself in good company here.

Click to expand...

Thanks Blossom! Yeah, it's gonna be hard letting go of previous dogmas.

Click to expand...

You can do it! I remember how hard it seemed at first but Peat's work made so much sense to me that I stuck with it and in no time at all I started noticing improvements. Hang in there.

Click to expand...

I guess I miss MDA's journalling aspect. It feels kinda lonely here, I don't know anyone yet ;D
Everything is so new and scary and the complete opposite of what I've believed in...
*fingers and toes crossed*

You can take a screen shot as image after making the chart at cronometer.com
Before finding Ray Peat i read a lot of those online health blogs mostly written
by PhDs and some of those self trained scientists like daily apples.
I was not convinced that RP was right about fish oil and sugar.
Even that M Stone who claimed to be a RP follower claimed
he was sure RP was wrong about fructose. That is because in the
health blog circles there were tons of studies showing how toxic sugar is.

I have read RP's articles for about 1.5 year before i switched to total sugar.
That happened after RP wrote those new articles on sugar where he
explained in detail how fructose works. Almost everything RP talks about
is basic physiology and biochemistry, nothing fancy or controversial.
Then i realized people who are against sugar knows very little or almost
nothing about both physiology and biochemistry. I would suggest you to
read RP's two articles on sugar " Sugar Issues" and " Glucose and Fructose
for Diabetes" and then you can decide for yourself if sugar is harmful or not.

In the beginning i did a non-dairy version of peating. I mostly use table sugar.
I could not tolerate orange juice or other fruits and it was hard to find
fully ripened fruits. I did not count any calories but i made sure i get at
least 80 grams of protein. I ate a lot of steak with some gelatine and
egg shell powder with coffe.Most important part of peating is to avoid PUFA
and intake of adequate nutrients with vitamin and minerals.
Stored PUFA is the root cause of most health issues, once a person
is PUFA free, which takes about 4 years, then everything becomes easy.

Mittir said:

I would suggest you to
read RP's two articles on sugar " Sugar Issues" and " Glucose and Fructose
for Diabetes" and then you can decide for yourself if sugar is harmful or not.

Click to expand...

On it!

The hardest part of me is to trust myself to make decisions; which is why I ask a million questions and want very specific guidelines to follow. Now I'm reading blogs like Butter Nutrition and The Nourished Life, having a hard time digesting eating 2000 calories and carbs. This entire time I was craving all the things I needed and I completely ignored them... It's just so damn tragic ;D

How exactly do you add sugar into your diet? To you make certain things? Do you sprinkle it on food? Do you eat tons of desserts? I don't get it ><
Give me some example of the kind of stuff you eat!

Thanks Mittir I really appreciate your patience with me

Sorry to butt in but I just wanted to let you know that when the term 'sugar' is used it usually means more than sucrose/table sugar. It can mean honey, fruit and fruit juice, lactose (milk sugar), etc. In the beginning I often had a tablespoon or more of honey with the meals I was used to eating from my paleo/ low carb days just to make sure I got enough 'sugar'. I started adding sugar or honey to coffee and drinking fruit juice. There are many ways to get more 'sugar' but just thought I'd mention those because they were particularly easy for me to do in the beginning.

Blossom, butt in any time. I'm like a sponge! I like reading Peat but it's hard to convert it into practical advice.
I welcome any information on how all of you it to your advantage.

I try to drink milk with every meal. I added sugar to my coffee today but didn't like it. I just like black coffee, the bitter the better!

Do you guys juice regularly? Or buy non-concentrated OJ? Do you have sugar on its own? (I'm guessing not.)

From my understanding every meal should be balanced in protein, carbs, sugars and saturated fats. Is this correct?

Welcome Peat's_Girl!!!

I was a High Fat Low Carber for years and did a lot of metabolic damage to my body. I can positively assure you that you can heal yourself. Be patient, it took me nearly a year, but you are much younger than me.

An example of what I eat every day: You can get a lot calcium from low fat Swiss cheese (I get the sliced Jarlsberg from Costco when it's on sale and stock up). I also drink lots of OJ, 0% fat Fage Greek yogurt with lots of honey or pure fructose or sugar, lots of organic coffee with whole raw milk and yes, more organic sugar. Oysters at least once a week, seafood such as cod, lobster or shrimp, very lean grass-fed beef and/or lamb at least once a week, eggs, hydrolyzed gelatin, lots of very ripe mangoes, peaches, nectarines, watermelon, cherries, grapes etc. Occasional well-boiled greens, plenty of salt. If you can't get ripe fruit, just drink OJ. I buy the organic not from concentrate OJ from Costco...oh yeah, and a carrot.

I eat three times a day aiming for 30 to 35 grams of protein per meal and double that for carbs per meal from fruit/sugar and keep my fat pretty low for weight loss.

I gained a lot of weight when I started Peating, I have since lost the weight and then some by keeping my fat intake quite low. I figured I had enough fat already on me and didn't need too much more from my diet.

Hang in there, it's DEFINITELY WORTH IT!!!!

Oh, one more thing: it's really REALLY important to cut all PUFA from your diet, can't stress that enough! So no pork, fatty fish and limit the conventionally raised chicken and for sure no more chicken skin etc. I also make jello from regular gelatin and grape juice...YUMMY!

Thanks TBP, now I definitely have some perspective on what meals look like! :)

Do you live near a Costco? I know, I know... I sound like a Costco commercial, but I promise I have NO affiliation. But I do buy a lot of my food from there, including their Organic frozen mango chunks to make smoothies, they are so delish!!! Sometimes they end up so thick it's like a giant bowl of mango ice cream. You can add calcium or magnesium powder to the blender if you need more minerals in your diet. Minerals are really important if you are hypothyroid.

Sort of. But I live in Canada and we don't get the same stuff here. So nothing grass-fed, no olive oil canned oysters, no kerrygold butter...

I decided to continue my sob story in the Log thread (which I didn't know you guys have).

Peat's_Girl said:

Blossom said:

Welcome Peat's_Girl! I love the name. Many forum members (myself included) have experienced a paleo/primal phase and are now completely recovered. I think you will find yourself in good company here.

Click to expand...

Thanks Blossom! Yeah, it's gonna be hard letting go of previous dogmas.

Click to expand...

its easy. And in fact, this is the most fundamental life skill for growth in any real meaningful way. You should start learning this skill asap

based on the major carb restricing, weight loss, excersize on empty glycogen...like your cells are probably highly anaerobic...many or most. That and the consistent high parathyroid due to all the phosphorus excess in meat, probably a bad fat ratio...certainly so, you've basically done most of the things youd want to do if you were on purpose trying to see how fast you could wreck your metabolism and start turning cancerous.

The idea (proper function) is to limit stress hormones by paying attention to these...not having excess water to solute/sugar ratio, as much or near as much ( best if more) calcium than phosphorus, never get into a cortisol state meaning a state where protein is becoming sugar because there isn't enough and simultaneously ketones are produced, getting enough (a lot) of potassium, avoid GI irritants like strong spices, astringent tough fibers, undercooked starch, unripe fruit, bran or peels, and eat as little polyunsaturated fat as you can (basically don't purposely add any via cooking oil or nuts/seeds)

theres really no other way around it...the quicker you do that, and get sun and rest, the better and more optimum and good you will feel, doped up and positive. Violating any of the above mentioned will slow the process, though admittedly its quite intensive to really get into and understand the flow of what such looks like, and to maintain perfection all the time, the less you initiate any stress hormone the quicker your body will be optimum (and therefore mind and spirit)